In between all the posts from guys asking what guns to buy the women in their lives and such, I wanted to jump in and shamelessly sing my own praises for a minute. Hope nobody minds.

I took my XD9 to the range yesterday, my second time shooting it. A guy friend of mine went with me, and we had a lovely morning -- breakfast, shooting, then coffee and Hoppe's #9. Hard to beat that, despite it being a gloomy, rainy, muddy day. As you can see, I'm definitely getting used to the XD's sights now, and I'm very pleased with my performance. The bottom target in this photo was shot at 15 yards, and I'm quite content with how I did:

The other reason I'm proud of myself is reflected in the line of holes on the top target. My shooting friend, who is definitely not one of the "women can't handle anything but a .25" crowd, decided he wanted to try my XD. "And, I have something fun you might like to try," he said. "It's a bit of a challenge, but I think you can do it."

Whereupon he unzipped his gun case and withdrew an enormous .44 magnum revolver with an 8-inch barrel. I look a deep breath, aimed, fired. Muttered expletives under my breath and did it again. And again. The final tally? Six of six shots on the paper at 15 yards, and four of six inside the 8 ring. I wouldn't want to shoot that thing every day, but I think I comported myself well.

Just goes to show, there's really no gun that's "too big for a woman to shoot", IMO. We just don't have the luxury of using raw muscle power to compensate for bad technique like guys can sometimes do.